| Half Human | |
|---|---|
 Original Japanese Poster |
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| Directed by | Ishiro Honda Kenneth G. Crane (USA) |
| Produced by | Tomoyuki Tanaka Robert B. Homel (USA) |
| Written by | Takeo Murata |
| Starring | Momoko Kochi Akira Takarada Akemi Negishi Sachio Sakai Nobuo Nakamura John Carradine (USA) Russell Thorson (USA) Robert Karnes (USA) Morris Ankrum (USA) |
| Music by | Masaru Sato |
| Cinematography | Tadashi Iimura Lucien N. Andriot (USA) |
| Distributed by | Toho (Japan) Distributors Corporation of America Inc. (USA) |
| Release date(s) |  August 14, 1955 December, 1958 |
| Running time | 94 minutes (Japan) 63 minutes (USA) |
| Country | Japan United States |
| Language | Japanese English |
Half Human, originally released in Japan as Jujin Yuki Otoko (獣人雪男, lit. "Monster Snowman"), is a tokusatsu film produced and released by Toho Film Productions Ltd. in 1955. The film was made by Toho's legendary Godzilla production team of Ishiro Honda, Eiji Tsuburaya, and Tomoyuki Tanaka. This was director Honda's second assignment in the kaiju (or monster) genre, after the original Godzilla (1954). Reportedly one of Honda's better efforts, the film has been blocked from public viewing for decades because the film's depiction of a native tribe with similarities to the minority Ainu and burakumin peoples is felt to be offensive by today's standards.
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Plot
The original Japanese story concerns the discovery of a giant prehistoric snowman in the Japanese Alps by a group of hikers. When a traveling circus attempts to capture the monster, they accidentally kill the monster's son instead. This enrages the larger snowman who kills the circus men, destroys a native village, and kidnaps the lead female. The hikers, along with the sole survivor of the native village, track the monster to its cave. The native girl saves the female hiker by attacking the snowman. The girl and the monster fall to their deaths inside a volcanic pit.
English version
It is assumed that the film was shown in its entirety in the United States, in the Japanese language at Japanese-American ("Chinatown") theaters on the West Coast, as were most other films produced in that country. This release may or may not have included English subtitles. Per se, the film itself received no wider release but principal sequences involving the basic plot structure were used to create an American hybrid entitled Half Human.
Half Human
The 1958 nationwide U.S. release of this film took sequences of Jujin Yuki Otoko and added extensive new scenes starring John Carradine and featuring Morris Ankrum and two lesser-known American actors, and the entire soundtrack was replaced with American stock music cues, sound-effects, and voice-over narration by Carradine replacing all dialogue in the Japanese scenes.
Toho's costume for the snowman's son was even imported by the new film's makers and used in a scene where the creature has supposedly just been autopsied by Ankrum and is seen lying on an operating table. Including the extensive American footage, this version runs only 63 minutes in total.
Availability
All original Japanese prints have been banned since the 1960s for any public display, by Toho themselves for the reason explained above. However, a print with a time code at the top of the frame has been in circulation on the gray market and on the internet. While there is much speculation as to the source of this print (such as a screener for a potential home video release at some point), its origin remains unclear.
The U.S. edition of this film is the only version that has been officially made available for home video. When Half Human was originally released by Rhino VHS in North America, it was in black and white. That video edition is extremely rare, and almost impossible to find because it has long since been out of print. Now the only way to see the film is in "The Restored Color Version" which was released in 1995 by "Haunted Hollywood Home Video". Laserdisc releases of the U.S. cut are highly sought after by Japanese collectors and routinely command premium prices on Japanese auction sites.
Cast
- Takeshi Iijima - Akira Takarada
- Chika - Akemi Negishi
- Machiko Takeno - Momoko Kochi
- Professor Tanaka - Nobuo Nakamura
- Nakata - Sachio Sakai
- Tribal Chief - Kokuten Kodo
- Oba - Yoshio Kosugi
- Chubby Thug - Akira Tani
- Shinsuke Takeno - Kenji Kasahara
- Villager - Senkichi Omura
- Kurihara - Koji Suzuki
- Shinagawa - Ren Yamamoto
- Matsui - Akira Sera
- Kodama - Yasuhisa Tsutsumi
- Takeno - Tadashi Okabe
- Thug - Yutaka Nakayama
English cast
- Dr. John Rayburn - John Carradine
- Prof. Philip Osborne - Russell Thorson
- Prof. Alan Templeton - Robert Karnes
- Dr. Carl Jordan - Morris Ankrum
See also
References
- Famous Monsters of Filmland. November 1982 (#189), p.56.
External links
- Half Human: The Story of the Abominable Snowman (US version) at the Internet Movie Database
- Half Human at Allmovie
- "獣人雪男 (Ju jin yuki otoko)" (in Japanese). Japanese Movie Database. http://www.jmdb.ne.jp/1955/ce002660.htm. Retrieved 2007-07-13.
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